San Francisco: The tech consultant convicted of stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee to death was sentenced in San Francisco on Tuesday to 16 years to life in prison.
A jury in December 2024 found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder, rejecting his claim that he had acted in self-defence. He has remained in custody since his arrest nine days after the killing on April 4, 2023.
Before imposing the sentence, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alexandra Gordon rejected Momeni's request for a new trial. His attorneys have said they plan to appeal.
Members of Lee's family addressed the court on Tuesday, including his 18-year-old daughter, Scout Lee, who spoke directly to Momeni.
“You did not just end his life, you ended an entire future built around a man,” she told Momeni, according to media reports.
Momeni, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, maintained that he had acted in self-defence. He told Lee's family that he understood their loss.
“Unfortunately, we have completely different understandings of what transpired,” Momeni said.
Lee, a prominent tech entrepreneur, was found staggering along a deserted downtown street, leaving a trail of blood and calling for help. The 43-year-old later died in hospital.
Prosecutors said Momeni had planned the attack, driving Lee to an isolated spot under the Bay Bridge and stabbing him three times, including once in the heart, with a knife he had taken from his sister's kitchen. They said Momeni was angry with Lee for introducing his younger sister to a drug dealer who, she said, gave her GHB and other drugs before sexually assaulting her.
However, Momeni testified that Lee had attacked him with a knife after becoming angry when the tech consultant chided him for spending time searching for a strip club that night instead of being with his family. Momeni, who studies martial arts, said he did not realise he had fatally wounded Lee or that Lee had been injured.
Lee had created the mobile payment service Cash App and was chief product officer at the cryptocurrency company MobileCoin when he died. He had recently moved to Miami from the San Francisco Bay Area, where his ex-wife, Krista Lee, lives with their two children, and had returned to California for a visit.
Jurors ultimately rejected a first-degree murder charge, which required prosecutors to prove that Momeni had acted deliberately, wilfully, and with premeditation. Second-degree murder does not require premeditation.
